A Christmas Text.
The husband knelt on the floor with strings of fairy lights in vaious piles around him. Every so often he’d omit a large theatrical sigh and exchange sympathetic looks with the dog.
’It’s not even Christmas’, he grumbled, ‘remind me again why you need these.’
’It’s very nearly Christmas, I replied, ‘and regardless, I just feel I’d like a bit of twinkle in my life.’
He looked back at me. The Welsh Whippet took his best resigned look and lay on his back with all four legs in the air while Wilson nudged his tennis ball into the wire mix with his nose.
‘Can’t we just put them up?’ I asked gently, sensing a certain amount of grumpiness.
’I’m trying to untangle them’, he said, ‘I just don’t understand it’, he continued. ‘Every year I waste hours of my life trying to untangle fairy lights. Last year I wrapped them all around light holders thinking that they would solve it but yet…’ he waved his arm at the piles of tangled wire, ‘… and why…’, he continued, now comfortably into his rant, ‘… I don’t even like fairy lights.’
’They look pretty’, I said staring into a box of assorted baubles in strange colours and various stages of decay from years gone by.
A series of loud bangs broke my thoughts. The teenager (who officially, I had been told, wasn’t actually a teenager anymore) arrived in a cloud of dust, squeezing his little car that vibrated with strange music beats between ours in the drive. I held my breath. Wondering how long it would take him to realize that he hadn’t left enough room to open either door and actually get out. He’ll realist, I thought. Reverse sensibly and park nicely somewhere else. The boot opened and he clambered out through it, pulling an extensive bag of dirty washing behind him.
’What’s for dinner?’ he asked.
Teenager back for the holidays and tiny fairy lights like fireflies dancing in the tree outside. Life doesn’t need to get much better than that I thought/ Xx
Wishing you all some twinkle and sparkle in your days over the holidays. I hope you get some time to just stop and stare.
Love,
Lucy
